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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26775010">We Don't Give Up and Die</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowsister/pseuds/Crowsister'>Crowsister</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fairy Tail</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Preview, starts off dark with a tiny light at the end</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:21:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,231</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26775010</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crowsister/pseuds/Crowsister</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU. Gajeel Redfox has had a roughly shitty life. He's not certain if he'll find a way out if he's honest with himself (and he can only be honest with himself since that's all he has left). Preview for a longer fic.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>We Don't Give Up and Die</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Heyo! For Gajeel Day 2020, I decided to post a Gajeel-centric preview of the long Gajevy fic I've been working on for...about two and a half months now. A lot of it is a Modern AU, translating the fantasy aspects of Fairy Tail to be MMO RP, along with a lot of the inter-guild conflicts as MMO-based rather than real life-based. It's been pretty fun doing the translation work from canon to that sort of mindset!</p><p>This fic here is supposed to be Gajeel's introduction in the fic, so I hope you like it! It'll be explored more, I promise.</p><p>Shoutout to my SO, who both got me into Fairy Tail and has been patiently supporting me in this project.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He parked. Took off his helmet. Stomped up the metal stairs and fished a screwdriver out of his pocket at the gate. He reached through it, put the screwdriver’s head to the lock, and brute-forced his way through the gate.</p><p>Gajeel Redfox was, to put it bluntly, a six-foot-tall hot mess. His helmet was scuffed from more scrapes than he could count, his clothes were almost too small on him, and he was pretty sure he was dehydrated more often than not. None of those things stopped him from being able to kick down the door to the house, mind you, but in the grand scheme of things, he was pretty sure those were just the outside signs of his fucked up existence.</p><p>He trudged through the broken living room, eyes glossing over the garish and ripped yellow wallpaper. Gajeel stepped around the broken furniture but stopped to take a steak knife out of the couch. </p><p>He used the wrecked couch to get around the broken glass from the shattered coffee table, slinking into the kitchen. He put the knife in the goddamn miraculously in-one-piece knife block before using the toe of his boot to try to open the fridge. Wouldn’t budge. He frowned, leaning over and using the entire force of his body weight to get the door open. Gajeel huffed, finding only mold in the fridge’s depths. Slammed the door shut. Didn’t touch the sink since he knew from experience that it’d only make the pipes burst open.</p><p>With the grim determination of a man on death row, Gajeel left the kitchen and went down the statically silent hallway. He passed Juvia’s old room and knew that one would have the most fucking damage out of the damn house. And he didn’t give much of a damn about the other rooms, except to peer in and see if they’d been smart enough to take their shit from this sinking rat hole. Yep. Good on them.</p><p>He made it to his room at the end of the hall and saw it untouched. Figures his obedience would get some fucking reward. Gajeel slammed the door shut with his boot, tossed his helmet onto his twin bed, and flopped into an office chair made for a person half his size. Out of simple routine than anything else, he booted the intact computer and launched the Book of Zeref.</p><p>The game’s menu music always hit a chord with him: strings and metal mixed to make what he guessed some losers would call epic adventure music. He mostly liked it because it had a ripping melody, where the electric guitar and the violin would sync up in a duet, that caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. Gajeel didn’t feel much these fucking days (hadn’t since he was seven and a half), but that made him feel <em>something. </em>He looked at the face of his character.</p><p>Max height, top of the height slider Kontas motherfucker. Many considered the Kontas to be the ugliest race in the game, especially when you put them up beside the tree elves and the bunny girls. Fuck, even the giants and the sphinx-cat-inspired goblins were cuter than the draconic Kontas. And Gajeel’s was the nastiest looking he’d ever seen: the max height coupled with him picking every scar option, the dark grey skin, the helmet skin that had smoke coming out of his eyes and mouth, the snarled maw that was perpetually open and drooling (one of the character’s voice-lines, for when he crit with damage skills, was “I know how you die”). Black Steel was called ugly in RP for damn good reason, and he was just a reflection of who Gajeel was as a person.</p><p>But somehow, this digital reflection was worth more than Gajeel himself. Fuck Jose. Before he could stop himself, he clicked Black Steel on the character select button. He leaned back in the office chair (as much as he could without breaking the damn thing, again) and ran a hand through his hair, purposefully going pulling through tangles with his hand just to feel the short hair snag against his scalp.</p><p>Gajeel snorted, seeing Black Steel more or less trapped within the wrecked guild house of Phantom Lord. Figured that Jose would waste time using admin housing controls to wreck the place, then shoving it onto Gajeel. Just like the actual fucking house. Gajeel found himself making Black Steel sit down amongst the rubble, turning on the idling camera mode.</p><p>For some fuck’s sense of a joke, the game had a feature where you could turn on a sort of wallpaper mode. It’d fuck around the environment around your character, fixating on different parts of the area. Sometimes NPCs and PCs were also caught into it, but the Phantom Lord guild house was out in the middle of fucking nowhere. Nobody but Gajeel would be here.</p><p>So the idling camera would just fixate on the broken pieces of the guild. Sometimes on Black Steel himself. Gajeel stared at the screen, losing track of how long he did just. Stared. Blankly stared at the shitty monitor.</p><p>Fuck. Was Gajeel’s life seriously <em>just </em>this game? Jose ran to save his skin, Juvia left, and he was pretty sure his “dad” was just a dream he had when he was young and fucking stupid. Everyone else in Phantom Lord just didn’t matter; he couldn’t remember any of their names, and it’s not like they were on his friend list. Just to prove a sharp point to himself, he opened his friend list and saw one name. Rain Woman. Just Juvia’s character.</p><p>Suddenly, the idling camera shifted to something new. A goblin was jumping around the rubble, taking advantage of some clipping cheats and invisible geometry. The skin was the palest peach, almost Caucasian in color, and the armor was transmogged to look like a set of tacky orange and blue Hawaiian shirt and shorts with a knitted hat. It sat on the broken pillar above and behind him. He could see its mouth move, meaning the player was typing in open chat where he could read. He got out of idling camera, just for kicks, and looked at the textbox.</p><p><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> Yo! <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> Are you the only ghost left to haunt this plot, Black Steel?</p><p>Gajeel felt his lip almost twitch into a snarl.</p><p><b>Black Steel: </b> What the hell are you here for? <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> Just for a chat. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> Rain Woman joined my guild the other day.</p><p>Gajeel sat up in his chair, his head jerking back. That statement tore him open, the pieces going between something raw and betrayed-</p><hr/><p>
  <em> “Stay with me?” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “I won’t go where you can’t, Gajeel. I promise.” </em>
</p><p>
  <em> Two fists made of grimy eight-year-old hands met under the table full of cheap electronics, brushes, and paints. They both hid their smiles as Jose swept around the room again. </em>
</p><hr/><p>-and truly happy. His fingers typed before he could really think.</p><p><b>Black Steel:</b> She what? <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> She’s anxious about you, you know. <br/><b>Black Steel:</b> What the hell is she thinking?</p><p>There was silence for a while. Gajeel wondered if he was talking to someone else at the same time, maybe through whispers or in the Fairy Tail guild chat. Saint Tsuji, guild master of Fairy Tail, stood silently on his perch. Eventually, though, the goblin hopped off the pillar and RP-walked over to him. Because he was targeting Black Steel, Saint Tsuji’s eyes looked right at his character directly.</p><p><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> What are you planning to do now?</p><p>Gajeel sat back in the chair, slumping a little. He gave a long, long sigh, leaning his elbow against the small folding table that his monitor and keyboard were. He propped his cheek on his fist and typed with one hand,</p><p><b>Black Steel:</b> I don’t fucking know. Haven’t decided. Not like I have much left for me. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> Jose’s left? <br/><b>Black Steel:</b> Started to bolt the minute he realized there might be police investigations, but the shitlord decided to try to have the last laugh. <br/><b>Black Steel:</b> Wrecked the house we all were cooped up in. Rain Woman knows the address. <br/><b>Black Steel:</b> I’ll get by somehow, without him.</p><p>Gajeel watched as Saint Tsuji used the sigh emote, then the hands-folded-behind-back emote. Gajeel was pretty damn sure that the game needed to stop having so many pointlessly specific emotes.</p><p><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> Can I ask you a question, Gajeel? <br/><b>Black Steel:</b> What? <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> What were you thinking when you picked a fight with us? <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> What did Phantom Lord mean to you? <br/><b>Black Steel:</b> That’s more than one question. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> They’re the same. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> What I’m getting at is /this/: what do you, /yourself/, think about who you are? <br/><b>Black Steel:</b> Wrong way to go about it, if Juvia’s given you any damn idea about my fucked up life. <br/><b>Black Steel:</b> Phantom Lord was a way for me to have a roof over my head. I was a chained up attack dog who just wanted to get through another damn day. I had fuckall outside of the guild cuz that was the way Jose made it. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> Are you that unquestioning that you’d obey any order from Jose? <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> Are you no more than his attack dog? Or worse, his puppet? <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> I don’t think you’re as boring a man as that.</p><p>Gajeel inhaled sharply through his nose as he shakily unfolded the fist against his cheek. He raked his blunt fingernails against his nose and lips, not drawing blood, but using pain to let him break out of the guilt that was threatening to consume him through nausea and an iron-hard stomach. He ripped his fingers from his face, typing furiously with both hands.</p><p><b>Black Steel:</b> Fuck. Off. <br/><b>Black Steel: </b>Leave me alone.</p><p>Gajeel felt his cheeks burn. With no one in the house, he couldn’t stop himself from physically trembling. He slammed a fist against his thigh to try to get that energy out, but the floodgates were fucking open.</p><p>He damn near jumped out of his chair when he heard an alien sound notification from the game. Gajeel looked to see a fucking <em>friend request. </em>From the guy whose guildmates he <em>knowingly</em> hurt. He participated in Jose’s campaign to emotionally and socially cripple Fairy Tail throughout the BoZ community, tried to get them isolated at least and <em>banned </em>at worst. Make them fear the name Phantom Lord by fucking gaslighting three of them into a corner when their worst “crime” was telling people the <em>truth</em> about his guild. And by the end of Phantom Lord’s takedown, Gajeel had a foggy idea of how <em>vital </em>guildmates were in Fairy Tail.</p><p>And <em>yet, </em> their guild master was reaching out a hand. A digital hand, but fucking <em> still. </em>Unbelievable bastard.</p><p><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> I’m going to be a bit of a dramatic old man, but there's no need to throw yourself into the darkness. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> How about it? Do you want to be friends? Join my guild, maybe?</p><p>Gajeel felt every muscle in his body go rigid. He reread the words. Reread them after that, just to be damn sure what the absolute <em>hell </em>he was reading.</p><p><b>Black Steel:</b> You have to be joking! Are you fucking serious?! After what I did? <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> There are people in this world who will see/hear someone’s suffering and do nothing. Some report it to those they think are the proper authorities to handle it. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> I am a man who is neither. When I see suffering, I reach out a hand. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> If you truly prefer the path of solitude, of wanting to figure out how to help yourself alone, so be it. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> Many people desire solitude, but none of them can withstand it. <br/><b>Black Steel:</b> I TRIED TO DESTROY YOUR GUILD <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> Let’s put all of that aside for just a moment. <br/><b>Black Steel:</b> and i hurt your friends <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> That... <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> That I will never forgive, no matter what. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> But, as an adult, if I ignored a young man trying to throw himself into the darkness, it'd be myself that I could never forgive.</p><p>Gajeel’s lips trembled for a second before he locked his teeth together to stifle himself. When he could hear grunts leak out of his mouth, he rolled part of his lip between his teeth. His eyes darted between the friend request and the words, rereading them. And reviewed them again.</p><p><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> This isn’t me saving you. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> This will depend just as much on you as it will me. It has to be /you/ choosing to follow the path to a better tomorrow. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> Will you go forward, or will you stop? It's up to you to decide. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> There are many paths to tomorrow, and I’m just a first step to one. <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> Before you accept, you must know that everyone in Fairy Tail cannot do one thing.</p><p>His fingers numbly bit into the keyboard.</p><p><b>Black Steel:</b> what <br/><b>Saint Tsuji:</b> We don’t give up and die.</p><p>His right hand shook as it moved from the keyboard to the mouse. His lip was starting to bleed a little with how much he bit into it. He clicked.</p><p>He clicked <em>accept. </em></p>
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